Generally, an air conditioner for a vehicle is a device that cools or heats the interior of the vehicle in summer or winter or removes the frost covered on windshield glass in case of rain or in winter so as to provide clear front and rear views for a driver. To this end, the air conditioner introduces external air into the vehicle or circulates the internal air of the vehicle to heat or cool the external or internal air, thus heating and cooling the interior of the vehicle.
The air conditioner includes a compressor, a condenser, an expansion valve, and an evaporator. Cooling the vehicle is conducted in a manner that a refrigerant moves in the order of the compressor, the condenser, the expansion valve, and the evaporator. The compressor is generally located adjacent to an engine to receive power from the engine and thus serves to compress a gaseous refrigerant to high temperature and high pressure. The refrigerant compressed to the high temperature and high pressure through the compressor is introduced into the condenser along a connection pipe, heat-exchanged with external air, and then liquefied. The liquefied refrigerant is sprayed through the expansion valve to a cloud-like form made by mixing liquid and gas. As the high pressure refrigerant is expanded, a lot of heat is lost, and accordingly, the refrigerant becomes a low temperature refrigerant. The low temperature refrigerant is introduced into the evaporator through the connection pipe and then evaporated by the heat of the external air introduced into the interior of the vehicle from the outside of the vehicle, so that the low temperature external air is supplied to the interior of the vehicle.
In case of a small vehicle, the air conditioner is disposed in the interior of a front end module of the vehicle, but in case of a large vehicle, the distance between the front and rear of the vehicle is relatively long, so that the air conditioner is located at a different position from that of the small vehicle. In case of the air conditioner for the large vehicle, generally, a cooling module having a condenser is mounted on top of a vehicle roof, and an evaporator is located on the underside of the vehicle roof.
A conventional air conditioner for a large vehicle is disclosed in Korean Patent Application Laid-open No. 10-2011-0004038 (dated on Jan. 13, 2011), which is illustrated in FIG. 1. FIG. 1 is a sectional view showing the conventional air conditioner, wherein the positions of the cooling module and the evaporator disposed in the interior of the large vehicle are schematically illustrated. Referring to FIG. 1 showing the conventional air conditioner for the large vehicle, a condenser unit C is mounted on top of a vehicle roof R, and an evaporator unit E is located on the underside of the vehicle roof R. The condenser unit C is connected with the evaporator unit E by means of a compressed pipe 25. That is, the refrigerant discharged from the condenser unit C passes through an expansion valve 50 via the compressed pipe 25 and is then introduced into the evaporator unit E.
At this time, the vehicle roof R has a fastening hole formed thereon in such a manner to pass a pipe connecting the condenser unit C disposed on top thereof and the evaporator unit E disposed on the underside thereof therethrough. FIG. 1 shows only one compressed pipe 25 passing through the fastening hole formed on the vehicle roof R, but according to conventional practices, the vehicle roof R has another fastening hole formed thereon so as to pass an electric wire supplying electricity to a blower fan 23 of the condenser unit C. Further, separate connection members are fastened to the fastening holes for the fixing and airtightness of the pipe and electric wire passing through the fastening holes of the vehicle roof R, so that the pipe and the electric wire pass through the connection members to connect the condenser unit C and the evaporator unit E with each other.
According to the conventional practices, however, the respective fastening holes passing the pipe and the electric wire therethrough should be formed on the vehicle roof, thus making the manufacturing processes complicated, and further, a plurality of sealing members for the watertightness of the connection members should be required, thus increasing the number of parts.